5harathFounding Growth Lead, Willow Voice

Time for VC 2.0 - Zehra Naqvi, Undefeated Underdogs #shorts

26 Sept 2023 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:47

In this short, the speaker argues that a convergence of Twitter, increased accessibility, and vibrant community events is creating a turning point for startup founders. These forces are making founders better informed about venture‑capital (VC) options, what VCs look for, and how to protect themselves from potentially predatory deals—especially those that demand excessive advisory shares. The speaker further contends that founders who become VCs possess an intuitive, experience‑based perspective that can lead to deeper, more empathetic assessments of prospective investments, though they acknowledge that excellent VCs can also come from non‑founder backgrounds.

Chapters

I think we're at a turning point because of Twitter, because of accessibility, because of just events and community, like a huge fluff word, but genuinely because of all of this, founders are becoming more informed about their options and they're becoming more informed on how to understand what a VC is looking for, but also how to protect themselves from deals that might be a little predatory or not giving away too many advisory shares. And so I think founders who become VCs, understand the other side versus VCs who don't have that experience. And obviously, I don't think it's a hard and fast rule. I think there are VCs who are incredible and they were never founders, never worked at a startup. But I do just think that intuitive understanding almost just makes a VC more capable of a deeper understanding of just like who they're investing in.